A Letter for a Letter, No Act too Small
I just opened a new shirt the other day. It was Rag and Bone, my favorite label. Don’t judge me. I can only buy it when it’s really on sale. Anyway, after opening the shirt and looking at all the little plastic pieces that obviously have to be in there to keep the shirt perfectly folded while it’s shipped in a dark, cardboard box, I had an epiphany. Actually, I didn’t. I just got depressed. I thought…Here’s a great label, one of my favorites, who still can’t seem to remove little plastic things from their packaging. And I wasn’t sure I had the energy to write a letter to Rag and Bone and try to set them straight. While I was wrassling with all this in my head, I remembered a guest I had recently interviewed on my podcast.
Verda and I just had a great conversation with Cara Buckley, Climate Beat reporter for the New York Times. We had an amazing talk with her, and I’ll urge you all to listen to it after we drop that episode. In that conversation, Cara talked with us about something new; Eco Grief. Was that what was going on here? Was I, at the hands of my new Rag and Bone shirt, suffering a confirmed case of Eco Grief? With everything we’ve got going on these days, do I now have to worry about this new condition? We do. Experts tell us we need to limit the news we take in each day for the same reason. It stands that if we get too mired in sustainability stress, we’re gonna end up in a state of Eco Grief.
This condition is so significant that Cara actually wrote an article about young people, fed up with feeling like the world is going to end and creating Tik Tok (yes, I’m writing about Tik Tok) videos that focus on their own good deeds and optimism concerning the climate crisis. And the name of this article…”Okay Doomer”. I love it. A play on the long-lasting swipe at baby boomers, “Okay Boomer”, this is a movement meant to help people like me grow hopeful that we’ll be able to save our planet. These Eco Tokers are really making change, helping us and showing us that you can take a moment and make a difference.
She writes about Alaina Wood, who uses the Tik Tok platform to share small climate victories we can all feel better about. Or there’s Caulin Donaldson who posts videos of his beach clean ups every day. Every day. Trust me, he’ll suck you in and you’ll find yourself watching him clean beaches…every day. Caulin Donaldson says this; “I hate when people say one person can’t make change. It takes a whole group, but it takes one person to start. One person to inspire. One person to raise a voice.”
Thank you Caulin. So, I guess I can write that pesky letter to Rag and Bone after all and ask them why they have to package their shirts the same way shirt makers have done it for the past 50 years. I can ask them to evolve just a bit. Just a bit. And who knows. Maybe I send lots of letters and ask lots of people to change. And I won’t worry how many other people are doing it because I need to do this. And please, don’t worry about changing the world with your one small act, hope, instead, that you’ll inspire. And you only have to inspire one person. Your post doesn’t have to get 600 likes. It only really needs one. It only takes one person. Don’t be a Doomer.
